Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster gives his eighth and final State of the City Speech at the Long Beach Convention Center on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014. JOSH MORGAN, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Long Beach at a glance

Crime is down, the books are balanced, but the city's lagging economy faces tougher times with the loss of thousands of Boeing jobs. Also, a closer look at the population numbers of Long Beach.

News 4

Long Beachpopulation by the numbers

462,257

Population in 2010

361,334

Population in 1980

50,700

Latino population in 1980

188,412

Latino population in 2010

244,594

White population in 1980

135,698

White population in 2010

48,435

Households without children, the fastest-growing type of household since 2010

42,835

Residents older than 65 in 2010

32,474

Residents younger than 5 in 2010

2.8

Average household size in 2010

Sources: U.S. Census; city of Long Beach

Delivering his eighth and final State of the City speech, outgoing Mayor Bob Foster urged the leaders who will follow him to always think of the long-term impact of their decisions.

“Many of you will recall that I have often said that I keep a 10-year-old child in mind whenever confronted with an issue or opportunity. I chose this guidepost because it is a way of forcing a future orientation; something we need much more of in our public life.

“How will the city's action affect that child? Will it impose future debt for this child without real benefits? Will it provide more opportunity? Will it enhance or diminish that child's future,” he said Tuesday night in a filled Long Beach Arena ballroom.

More than anything, the city’s future includes transitions and new leadership. Besides the mayor leaving office, the upcoming city and state elections could mean that just two people currently on the City Council will have their current job by the end of the summer.

Furthermore, the Board of Harbor Commissioners is short a member, and the Port of Long Beach lacks an executive director while it has $4 billion worth of construction projects scheduled over the next decade. Police Chief Jim McDonnell also announced Monday that he’s running for sheriff, possibly leaving a vacancy for the city’s top cop.

But today, Foster said, the city is stronger in nearly every way possible.

“We chose to make tough political decisions that were in the long-term interests of the city's health but didn't leave anyone behind. And that is an important lesson to carry forward into a new era of surplus and growth,” he said.

He spoke about the city’s finances, the environment, the port and public safety, and gave his own assessment of his time in office, amongst other issues.

The biggest challenge for the next generation is the city’s unfunded and under-funded liabilities, particularly pensions, he said. But there have been decisions that put Long Beach on track to adequately paying off these burdens. Other decisions, including spending cuts and one-time revenues, mean that the city has a cleaner financial bill of health.

He touted air quality programs at the port that were implemented during his time in office, including clean trucks, the vessel speed reduction program and cutting diesel pollution by 81 percent. He also mentioned efforts to make the city’s waterways cleaner through trash-capturing devices.

“We should see fewer asthma cases, fewer missed work and school days, and much healthier 10-year-olds,” he said.

He also defended his shake up of the Harbor Commission in the fall. Without naming names, he referred to former Harbor Commission President Thomas Fields.

In November, at Foster’s request, the City Council removed Fields from his post. The mayor and Fields had clashed over the location of a new port headquarters, port security and travel expenses. Two days after Fields was fired, commission Vice President Nick Sramek resigned.

Foster said he’s obligated to oversee the port, and the port needs to be in tune to the whole city and not act as a separate kingdom.

“A cultural apathy toward the city is unhealthy, and the lack of effective oversight can, and has, led to complacent financial management,” he said. “At times, commissioners seemed more concerned with their next international trip than cost overruns.”

The mayor said that he’s confident that the current commission will pay more attention to construction projects, sync with city interests and have better financial management.

He touted the city’s recently announced 41-year-low violent crime levels in 2013, as well as its success in cutting property crime in the past year. The Fire and Police departments are also poised to roll back staffing cuts due to new police and fire academy classes.

Finally, he touted himself and urged the next wave of leaders to try to maintain these recent accomplishments.

“We live, plan, work and educate to make things better for the next generation; to make the road a little wider and smoother for those who follow us, to provide for a more productive, richer, fuller and more rewarding life for the next generation,” Foster said.

“All of us have this job, either in our families, our work, in my case, our city. I have taken this job very seriously. At times I may have appeared hard, forceful, direct and determined to achieve, but I believe I have done the job you elected me to do.

“I have fulfilled the responsibility you gave me and honored the trust you placed in me. I believe our city, our children, our families and our future are better because of the job we did. My hope is that the leaders that follow me will learn from both my accomplishments and mistakes in their effort to make this an even better city.”

*****

Crime continues to decline

Crime in Long Beach, like most of the country, is continuing a four-decade decline. A preliminary Long Beach Police Department tally shows that the number of reported violent crimes is at the lowest level since 1972.

Of the four types of violent crimes – murder, rape, robbery and violent assault – the number of reports dropped in all but murder from 2012 to 2013. Murders increased by 6.7 percent, but the overall number of reported violent crime went down 13.5 percent.

There were also fewer property crimes in 2013 compared with 2012, but 2012 was at least a five-year high for that type of crime. Police statistics show that there were a little more than 13,037 property crimes in 2012, up from 11,801 in 2011. Last year, however, there were 11,989 reported property crimes. The data were compiled before final figures for December 2013 was complete, and as such, eliminated crimes reported in December of each year. The total number of crimes is actually higher, but the year-to-year comparisons are still accurate.

During the years, some types of property crimes have climbed considerably. For example, garage burglaries climbed about 125 percent in 2008. But the four categories of violent crime, excluding murder, have all occurred less frequently since 2008.

The downward trend continued as police lost officers by attrition and as the state released more prisoners before they completed their sentences.

– Joshua Stewart

*****

Local economy still struggling

Long Beach’s economy continues to struggle, and it has serious challenges ahead, particularly for the city’s blue-collar middle class.

Unemployment has historically been high in the city, but Long Beach and the region were hit particularly hard by the Great Recession and have been left behind as other parts of the state and country recovered.

For example, in 2010 when national unemployment levels were at their worst, Long Beach had a 13.8 unemployment rate, making it the 44th worst in the Bureau of Labor and Statistics’ ranking of unemployment in the country’s 50 largest cities.

Year-to-year unemployment data wasn’t consistently available for just Long Beach, but data show that Los Angeles County is struggling to recover.

The national unemployment rate rose from 4.6 percent in 2007 to 9.6 percent in 2010, but by 2012 it dropped to 8.1 percent. The county rate started at 5.1 percent and peaked in 2010 at 12.6 percent, then dropped to 10.9 percent in 2012.

As of November, the county unemployment rate was 9.4 percent, while the national rate was 7.0 percent.

The problem may get worse. In 2015 the Boeing Co., the city’s largest private-sector employer, is shutting down its C-17 Globemaster production line, leaving the jobs of 4,050 in jeopardy. This is on top of the 3,275 manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 and 2011, city documents show. Officials are trying to find a new source of work for these people.

Furthermore, City Council members and industry groups are worried that the Port of Long Beach, one of the state’s biggest workplaces and one of the nation’s economic engines, has been politicized under Mayor Bob Foster’s administration. They’re warning that this turbulent period could cause the port’s tenants to take their businesses and their jobs to other ports.

Long Beach is not just dealing with a loss of jobs, but a loss of good-paying jobs. The city’s housing plan shows that “a significant portion of Long Beach residents are earning lower incomes. These employment trends indicate a polarization of income levels among residents.”

The plan shows that of the jobs coming to Long Beach, the largest increases “are expected to occur in the relatively lower-wage healthcare support, personal care/service, and food prep/service occupations.”

Other indicators show Long Beach struggling in other ways. For example, city documents show that, compared to the rest of the county, families in Long Beach earn less. The median household income here is $52,945, while families elsewhere in Los Angeles County earn $3,321 more.

*****

The books are balanced, for now

For the time being, Long Beach's bank accounts are in good shape, but there aren't many in City Hall who believe that there aren't tough challenges ahead.

The mayor, City Council and city manager's big victory this summer was their creation of a balanced budget without having to make significant cuts, a welcomed respite after years of trimming spending and downsizing city services. Things are good enough that after cutting $134 million in spending and 786 positions in the past seven years, they're anticipating a $3.5 million surplus this year.

The number actually might be higher than that because revenues are coming in higher than expected, city officials said. But for now, they're not sure how much extra money is coming in. The surplus is due, in part, to the dissolution of the redevelopment agency and revenues from oil. That added money to the general fund.

There are big expenses on the horizon, however. For example, there is $1.13 billion worth of unfunded obligations for pensions, sick leave, retiree health subsidies and workers' compensation programs. The overwhelming majority of that, $692 million for employee pensions, is expected to be paid off in about 30 years.

Also, though the loss of the redevelopment agency added $11 million in revenue to spend on whatever city officials find prudent, it means that $100 million was lost to spend exclusively on redevelopment. This means that it will be tough for the city to overhaul blighted areas to make them nicer for residents and increase property assessments and property tax revenues.

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